Flexible workplaces are becoming more and more popular. They are cost effective and fit very well with new ways of working. Employees are no longer working at their office every day. By use of network connections, they could work at home or other places on a computer with the same data as if they work at their office.
By using document management systems, paper documents are made available electronically. This reduces the necessity to have a fixed workplace in an office further.
In a flexible workspace or environment, employees no longer have their own desk, but use a desk from a pool of desks. Consequently, they're not using the same desk each day. In most cases, a desk typically contains a docking station, and peripheral devices such as computer screen, keyboard, mouse or tablet electronically coupled to the docking station. An employee connects his or her own laptop to the docking station and establishes a connection to a server.
A flexible working environment exhibits at least two problems, especially if the environment is extensive, contains dividers or is spread over different locations. Firstly, it is difficult to locate colleagues, as they're sitting in different places each day. The best option to obtain their locations is to ask them where they are by phone, chat or email. However, this disturbs them. Secondly, it is difficult to find a suitable workplace that is free, especially in the vicinity of direct colleagues or a team. The best option to find a workplace is to walk around, looking for one or the team. However, this could take a considerable amount of time.
Some computer programs, for identifying a person's location in a flexible working environment provide an option to input one's location manually, so that it can be consulted by others. However, this requires every time a manual action that is error-prone. Furthermore, the action is easily forgotten.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,246,746 discloses an enterprise network for tracking objects. A networked system of ID readers tracks selected objects, such as people, office equipment, and office furniture. The distributed system of readers communicates in real-time with a centralized management/security system. The physical location of an object is characterized as being somewhere within the range of a reader. The physical location of each reader has to be stored in a database to know the physical location of the object. A dedicated and complex networked system is needed to track objects.